You should have seen my breasts inside a dress so extravagant

it was rogue among a decade
of the type of electric horticulture

these bittersweet groves were founded on, so,
yeah, I traded it right off my body

for a bottle of rum on the cleanest, brightest street corner
I didn’t think to guard my skin against because

I’m in love with a woman who doesn’t appeal to me.

Turn on the television and all you hear
is the new way of speaking

asked and answered

or the old new way of speaking now that everyone’s doing it.

Am I happy about it? No.

I adapt to the manifold balconies of California
as a symbol of liberation

when no matter how many rails we could finish from the railing

or the viewshed of a whole city against the neon of a floozy motel

I am only ever trapped inside

my own fixed vantage point or else I am
convention

imploding, such as it does.